


Unmasked

by CircleUp



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29744427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CircleUp/pseuds/CircleUp
Summary: Felicia's reaction to unmasking Spider-man.
Relationships: Felicia Hardy/Peter Parker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: Soups Presents





	Unmasked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pandasushiroll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandasushiroll/gifts).



Unmasking Spider-man to kiss him is the worst thing Felicia has ever done.

He's so young.

It's a record-scratch. Their back and forth has been going on for years now, a constant flirtation toeing several lines. Spider-man thinks she can do better than she is, and sometimes Felicia might even believe him, even if half the time she's trying to convince him to go the opposite route and slum it. Isn't the first time Felicia has stolen kisses from the superhero either, but before now she's never decided to impulsively go further. She's never tried to unmask him before, and he's never done so either.

In hindsight, Felicia has no idea what came over her. He makes her feel safe. He makes her feel too safe, clearly. He's a liability.

She drops the mask and recoils, and his face goes from eager and hopeful to worried and hurt, but Felicia is too focused on the rising panic attack to notice.

He's so young. She throws up right after, and she's going to have to think long and hard about why she pictured Spider-man older and why that was so hot. She knows she's got Daddy-issues — what mercenary didn't, these days? — but this is another level. It isn't like he's younger; he looks around her age and that shouldn't bother her, but it does. That's the initial, visceral reaction: he's so young.

She's sick.

Felicia doesn't know how she gets home to her small, sixth-floor apartment, but she doesn't even bother to strip her mask off before she's leaning on her sink to stare at her reflection in the mirror and, not for the first time, wonder what the fuck she's doing with her life.

Her apartment's packed like a hoarder's wet dream from floor to ceiling with more trinkets and baubles than she will ever need. There's more here than anyone will ever need, and by now much of it is trash. She doesn't like any of it, she doesn't intend to sell most of it; it's just a compulsion fueled by that itch under her skin that's been there since Ryan—

She slaps the faucet off.

She doesn't think about Ryan, except when she does, every single day. She takes her mask off and doesn't think about him at all, or how his smirk follows her everywhere, how his fingerprints left indelible marks in her skin that she's washed off but still feels.

Ryan had this smile, a slow and casual one, all cocky self-assurance that she hates to see on people now. Who do you think you're fooling with that smile?

Not Felicia.

She showers. She wraps her hair up in a microfiber towel after and doesn't bother getting dressed as she makes herself some tea and doesn't think about Ryan, or how much Spider-man looks like him.

That's not objectively true. It's just, she hasn't ever pictured a face under the mask before. The first time she kissed him — and nearly all of the times after — she did so with his mask down, over the cloth. She's seen his chin because sometimes he rolls his mask up to drink or eat, but a chin isn't much to go on. She admittedly has always pictured a little more scruff under there, but she has never pictured a face her own age.

She has never pictured any face at all.

It had been safe like that, and it isn't safe now, and she doesn't know how to fix that. Spider-man is one of her only real friends, but how real is that when she's never planned to think of him as anything but a mask?

A mask is safe. A face isn't.

She isn't going to have a third face haunting her dreams. Two is more than enough for any one life time. There will not be another Ryan.

Felicia slips under stolen silk sheets after neatly avoiding dozens of boxes of things that she'd stolen and hadn't even bothered to open, sets her tea mug on her nightstand, and picks up her phone.

There's a message waiting for her. They swapped phone numbers a year ago and she isn't surprised to see it there.

_Spidey: ru ok_

Of course he's checking up on her. She's the one who freaked out after unmasking him to kiss him, and he's in her messages, making sure she's okay. He's such a gentleman.

Ryan did that too. How many times had he checked in on her after the bar? He'd been so sweet. It makes her sick all over again.

She puts down her phone and closes her eyes, though sleep doesn't come for a long, long time.

Felicia never replies.

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday gift to Panda (https://soups.jcink.net).


End file.
